This Working Paper is a summary of a workshop which was held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria in 1992. Small scale privatization (SSP) of shops, restaurants and other consumer services has been accomplished in the first stage of the complex...

The ongoing economic crisis has profoundly changed the industry of the asset management, by putting risk management at the heart of most investment processes. This new risk-based investment style does not rely on returns forecasts and is therefore assumed to be more robust. In 2011, it has...

Retail trade plays a major role in all economies all over the world. The performance of the sector has important implications towards the economic development of a country. Towards the end of 2008-09, while the world economy got shrank, the Indian economy was not much hampered due to its strong...

There is no doubt; consumer credits are more and more present in the economic life of the Chileans. It is enough to go to any shopping mall, supermarket or even medical centre to realize that today it is possible to buy almost everything with some kind of loan. The expansion of consumer credit...

This paper examines the effect of entry of large foreign retailers on local employment at the city level. Using a panel data for the period 2000-2006, we find that entry of large retailers largely increases employment in wholesale and retail sector and other related sector in the year of entry....

The underlying nature of forecast optimization makes the rational expectations hypothesis (REH) a framework that is theoretically consistent with the expectations formation produced by economic agents under well-defined assumptions of unbiased forecasts and efficient utilization of available...

This paper deals with the issue of transparency in the pricing process for motor fuels, vis-à-vis the collusion charges between oil companies (for which no evidence is found) and the «myth» of «one» national price for motor fuels. Such an approach ignores both the competition between oil...

Contemporary Web stores offer a wide range of products to e-customers. However, online sales are strongly dominated by a limited number of bestsellers whereas other, less popular or niche products are stored in inventory for a long time. Thus, they contribute to the problem of frozen capital and...

The study supports Government efforts to introduce reforms to the insurance industry and its negotiations for accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). It provides a consolidated perspective about insurance services in Laos, with particular reference to the impact of possible Government...